tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post115160362038345081..comments2017-09-26T14:11:12.112-07:00Comments on dangerous idea: Human benevolence and the problem of evilVictor Repperthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10962948073162156902noreply@blogger.comBlogger64125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-50870640959552877742014-03-09T23:31:55.676-07:002014-03-09T23:31:55.676-07:00Argan fruit trees growing in the semi desert of So...Argan fruit trees growing in the semi desert of Southwestern Morocco is the major source of the beneficial Argan oil. To get pure argan oil visit <a href="http://www.puradoroil.com/" rel="nofollow">Buy Argan Oil for Face</a>.Helen Evanshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06732540681774111328noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-65452788601565263502012-08-20T15:48:23.805-07:002012-08-20T15:48:23.805-07:00Well I salute you for trying to learn.
&gt;For Be...Well I salute you for trying to learn.<br /><br />&gt;For Ben, I&#39;m still trying to reconcile the concept of divine simplicity with Christianity, which seems at first blush to be utterly incompatible with it.<br /><br />Hmmmm....the doctrine has been confirmed by the Ecumenical councils of Christianity. Even Protestant Synods at Westminster endorsed it.<br /><br />Denial of the Divine Simplicity is a modern phenomena and novelty.BenYachovhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05645132954231868592noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-83820140301311118982012-08-20T14:47:10.089-07:002012-08-20T14:47:10.089-07:00im-skeptical,
Hart wrote a book about this called...im-skeptical,<br /><br />Hart wrote a book about this called <i>The Doors of the Sea</i>. In essence, it means that what God allows can be at variance with what he wills. The God of classical theism is intimately connected to everything, but he doesn&#39;t exert deterministic control. This other view is known as &quot;occasionalism&quot;--everything that happens is directly willed by God--, which is at odds with classical theism. It leads to a very Calvinistic view of the world, and it makes God responsible for everything bad that happens.rank sophisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01644531454383207175noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-17427927939428143832012-08-20T13:05:56.347-07:002012-08-20T13:05:56.347-07:00I&#39;m not a philosopher and if I may contribute ...I&#39;m not a philosopher and if I may contribute something to the discussion, I would like to share the view of Greg A. Boyd a pastor and theologian, which i find very intersting, he argues that &quot;We don’t need to believe that all things happen for a good purpose in order to believe that all things happen with a divine purpose. I submit that the ultimate reason why any evil event happens resides in the will of agents other than God. Yet, whatever free agents decide to do, we can affirm that the infinitely wise God has an eternally prepared plan in place as to how he will respond and bring good out of evil, in case it occurs. And if we remain confident in God’s unlimited intelligence, we can affirm that his plan to respond to bring a good purpose out of evil, in case it occurs, is as good as it would have been if he had allowed the evil event for the purpose he can bring out of it.&quot; also important point is &quot;if one believes, as I do, that God has bound himself to work within the variables the condition free will. One of the most important of these variables, I believe, is prayer. As I argue in Satan and the Problem of Evil, because God wants a “bride” who co-rules with him on earth (Rev. 5:10), he has set up things such that, to some degree, his will shall not be done except when his bride aligns her will with his in prayer. Since he’s all good, God is always doing the most he can do to maximize the good and minimize the evil. But God’s involvement in the world is genuinely conditioned by the prayers of his people. When they prayer, God can do more than he was doing previously. This isn’t about him gaining more power. It’s about God creating a world in which agents genuinely share power and responsibility with him&quot;Woodyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14979764004365820404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-57742864731375514802012-08-20T11:37:54.291-07:002012-08-20T11:37:54.291-07:00Danger, Danger, Will Robinson!Danger, Danger, Will Robinson!B. Prokophttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10548980245078214688noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-8609206043775286502012-08-20T09:40:33.238-07:002012-08-20T09:40:33.238-07:00@B. Prokop:
&quot;Yikes! It took me eleven tries ...@B. Prokop:<br /><br />&quot;Yikes! It took me eleven tries to prove I was not a robot with that last posting. A new record!&quot;<br /><br />That is precisely what a cunningly programmed robot would say in order to fool us into believing that it is not a robot!<br /><br />I am on to you.grodrigueshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12366931909873380710noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-84877120053769355312012-08-20T09:35:16.881-07:002012-08-20T09:35:16.881-07:00For Ben, I&#39;m still trying to reconcile the co...For Ben, I&#39;m still trying to reconcile the concept of divine simplicity with Christianity, which seems at first blush to be utterly incompatible with it. I believe Feser says that the doctrine of the trinity must be accepted as truth, and therefore it must be compatible with divine simplicity. But the explanation for that is beyond human comprehension, so it is a mystery. My search for understanding continues.<br /><br />For rank, the idea that God is not a moral agent is still troublesome to me. It&#39;s not as though he has nothing to do with our state of affairs. If the act of creation is continual, at any moment, the world is exactly what God makes it. Why, then, does he bear no responsibility?im-skepticalhttp://im-skeptical.myopenid.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-33452904178110457772012-08-20T04:13:13.242-07:002012-08-20T04:13:13.242-07:00Yikes! It took me eleven tries to prove I was not ...Yikes! It took me eleven tries to prove I was not a robot with that last posting. A new record!B. Prokophttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10548980245078214688noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-72635872251699496662012-08-20T04:11:49.806-07:002012-08-20T04:11:49.806-07:00I agree that The Beauty of the Infinite is a fierc...I agree that <i>The Beauty of the Infinite</i> is a fiercely difficult read. I never managed to get through the whole thing, and gave my copy to Victor a couple of years ago. But what I did understand was well worth the effort!<br /><br />I do have to admit that I find all this (virtual) ink spilled over classical theism vs theistic personalism to be more than a bit off-putting. As for myself, when I attempt to contemplate God, I stick to the principle &quot;He who has seen Me has seen the Father&quot; and leave it at that. I know - not very &quot;philosophical&quot; of me, but at least one cannot go wrong by following that rule.B. Prokophttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10548980245078214688noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-31027875388407198712012-08-19T17:58:25.751-07:002012-08-19T17:58:25.751-07:00I seem to recall Feser referring to Dun Scotus as ...<i>I seem to recall Feser referring to Dun Scotus as a Classic Theist. The deal with Scotus I believe was his idea you could make some unequivocal comparisons between God and creature in regards to being might have helped pave the way for TP.</i><br /><br />You could be right. Scotus has always struck me as doing all of the things that Hart was complaining about in that quote, though. But I doubt that Scotus realized that his views would result in theistic personalism.<br /><br /><i>Also I believe Calvin for all his fault rocked the Classic Theist mojo. That is at least something.</i><br /><br />Wow, I had no idea.<br /><br /><i>David Bentley Hart?<br /><br />I so have to read that guy!</i><br /><br />Hart is pretty awesome. That quote is from &quot;The Beauty of the Infinite&quot;, which is one of the most difficult books I&#39;ve ever read. He&#39;s done a couple of other pretty famous ones--including one that attacks the Gnus--, too. He defends basically the same views as Feser, but from the perspective of continental philosophy. Feser&#39;s more of an analytic philosopher, even though he refuses to admit it. But yeah, by all means check out Hart. He and Feser are my two favorite contemporary Christian philosophers.rank sophisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01644531454383207175noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-86815315111107782542012-08-19T17:33:52.314-07:002012-08-19T17:33:52.314-07:00David Bentley Hart?
I so have to read that guy!David Bentley Hart?<br /><br />I so have to read that guy!BenYachovhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05645132954231868592noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-65338695084025412172012-08-19T17:31:17.134-07:002012-08-19T17:31:17.134-07:00@RS
&gt;It was largely created by Duns Scotus, wh...@RS<br /><br />&gt;It was largely created by Duns Scotus, who lived around the time of Aquinas. This view is dominant among Protestants, and among most contemporary Christian philosophers. <br /><br />I might quibble here with this. I seem to recall Feser referring to Dun Scotus as a Classic Theist. The deal with Scotus I believe was his idea you could make some unequivocal comparisons between God and creature in regards to being might have helped pave the way for TP.<br /><br />The thing is the doctrine of the Divine Simplicity is key for classic Theism. <br /><br />As too the Protestants any Protestant who considers himself a foe of so called Neo-Theism(their term for TP) is cool. <br /><br />Also I believe Calvin for all his fault rocked the Classic Theist mojo. That is at least something.BenYachovhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05645132954231868592noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-70926194674200745562012-08-19T17:20:27.121-07:002012-08-19T17:20:27.121-07:00BTW thanks for the assist RS and peace out to you ...BTW thanks for the assist RS and peace out to you Crude.<br /><br />Classic Theism totally rules!<br /><br />BenYachovhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05645132954231868592noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-35783016588351009512012-08-19T17:17:10.378-07:002012-08-19T17:17:10.378-07:00@im-skeptical
No problem my friend. I don&#39;t ...@im-skeptical<br /><br />No problem my friend. I don&#39;t care if you don&#39;t believe. Who am I to to judge. As long as you try to understand then I am happy. I leave judgement to God.BenYachovhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05645132954231868592noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-35916446157345014862012-08-18T23:21:51.415-07:002012-08-18T23:21:51.415-07:00While I don&#39;t think Theistic Personalism is in...While I don&#39;t think Theistic Personalism is in nearly as bad a shape as others say, I lean classical theist myself, and would endorse the recommendations Rank is giving.<br /><br />There are many intellectual approaches to God, being grouped under large categories. Learning about them was pretty helpful to me early on, and I&#39;m lucky I stumbled on a lot of the resources I did, even if I don&#39;t agree with all of them.Crudehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04178390947423928444noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-39097235139704898582012-08-18T17:45:44.551-07:002012-08-18T17:45:44.551-07:00And I now see additional words from rank sophist t...<i>And I now see additional words from rank sophist to ponder, which I will. And thanks. It seems part of my problem is that different people tell me different things, and I never know what beliefs people have. I thought it was axiomatic among Christian theists that God is perfectly good (along with omniscient and omnipotent), but perhaps that&#39;s not true, or perhaps this goodness is something that must be understood only in a peculiar way.</i><br /><br />No problem. And the issue lies in the difference between two ways of looking at God. One is what Martin Heidegger called &quot;onto-theology&quot;--Feser calls it &quot;theistic personalism&quot;--which posits God as the &quot;prime being&quot; among &quot;lesser beings&quot;. It was largely created by Duns Scotus, who lived around the time of Aquinas. This view is dominant among Protestants, and among most contemporary Christian philosophers. <br /><br />The other view is the traditional one, which dominated for over 1,000 years. The Church Fathers were its main developers. (But it&#39;s likely that this view was in fact the standard interpretation of the Bible until relatively recently.) This is the &quot;classical theism&quot; discussed by Feser, Ben and I. A particularly important recent contributor to its revival is the Eastern Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart, who had this to say about the alternative (&quot;theistic personalism&quot;):<br /><br />&quot;... the God thus described is a logical nonsense: a being among beings, possessing the properties of his nature in a composite way, as aspects of his nature rather than as names ultimately convertible with one another in the simplicity of his transcendent essence, whose being and nature are then in some sense distinct from one another, who receives his being from being as such and so is less than being, who (even if he is changeless and eternal) in some sense becomes the being he is by partaking of that prior unity (existence) that allows his nature to persist in the composite reality it is, a God whose being has nonexistence as its opposite.... This God is a myth, an idol, and one we can believe in and speak of only so long as we have forgotten the difference between being and beings.&quot;<br /><br />Reppert, as much as I like his work on the argument from reason, falls into the theistic personalist camp. In fact, anyone who describes God as &quot;omnipotent, omniscient and perfectly good&quot; is a prime suspect for belonging to that group. People like Platinga, Swinburne, van Inwagen and, to a large extent, William Lane Craig are all theistic personalists. Not that talk of &quot;omniscience&quot;, &quot;omnipotence&quot; and &quot;perfect goodness&quot; is wholly alien to classical theists--the terms just mean completely different things to them. Hope this is helpful.rank sophisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01644531454383207175noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-79454261236962448462012-08-18T17:22:11.343-07:002012-08-18T17:22:11.343-07:00You know, it&#39;s really too bad that Son of Conf...You know, it&#39;s really too bad that Son of Confusion wasn&#39;t available to school God that he isn&#39;t a moral being when Abraham asked him, &quot;Will not the Sovereign Lord of the universe do the right thing?&quot; <br /><br />Think of all the misunderstandings that could have been avoided had Son of Confusion been able to get the point across to God that the correct response to Job wasn’t “You don’t understand enough of what’s going on to judge what I am doing … but, if you say you trust me, then trust me”, but rather, “Dude, seriously! I’m amoral, so I’m way beyond these petty concerns about right and wrong.”<br /><br />Still, I can’t but wonder, how does Son of Confusion’s never-did-exist religion of “classical theism” differ in substance and theology from Islam?<br />Ilíonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15339406092961816142noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-81945677134364943422012-08-18T16:50:46.621-07:002012-08-18T16:50:46.621-07:00And I now see additional words from rank sophist t...And I now see additional words from rank sophist to ponder, which I will. And thanks. It seems part of my problem is that different people tell me different things, and I never know what beliefs people have. I thought it was axiomatic among Christian theists that God is perfectly good (along with omniscient and omnipotent), but perhaps that&#39;s not true, or perhaps this goodness is something that must be understood only in a peculiar way.im-skepticalhttp://im-skeptical.myopenid.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-84184926668977147542012-08-18T16:27:35.306-07:002012-08-18T16:27:35.306-07:00BenYachov,
Thank you for bothering to speak to me...BenYachov,<br /><br />Thank you for bothering to speak to me. I really am trying to understand, and I appreciate the material you pointed me to. I will try to absorb as much of it as I can manage, considering that I don&#39;t do this for a living.<br /><br />The remark about angels was off-base I guess, but unless I can discover the real meaning of statements like &quot;Goodness is being&quot;, I&#39;m afraid I will never be able to discuss these things in a satisfactory manner. I will try.<br />im-skepticalhttp://im-skeptical.myopenid.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-32907471016316603252012-08-18T15:20:43.374-07:002012-08-18T15:20:43.374-07:00Pardon me, Ben, but I&#39;m going to cut in on im-...Pardon me, Ben, but I&#39;m going to cut in on im-skeptical for second.<br /><br /><i>The question I have posed is pretty straightforward. The answers never are.</i><br /><br />You could say the same thing about science. <br /><br />&quot;Why do I have mass?&quot;<br />&quot;*infinitely complex response*&quot;<br />&quot;That&#39;s too difficult to understand, so it must be wrong.&quot;<br /><br /><i>God&#39;s creatures derive their goodness from God. (This is a tenet of Christian theology, is it not?)<br />God&#39;s creation is in fact nowhere near perfectly good. This I can see for myself. Why not?</i><br /><br />For the Thomist, God&#39;s &quot;perfect goodness&quot; (this is a misnomer) results from his infinity, indivisibility and simplicity. If creation was infinite, indivisible and metaphysically simple, then it could also be &quot;perfectly good&quot;--but then it wouldn&#39;t be creation, nor would it be separate at all from God. So, simply put, it&#39;s impossible for creation to both exist and be &quot;perfectly good&quot;.<br /><br /><i>God&#39;s creation is everything we humans are able to observe. It&#39;s the invisible part that we debate about.<br />If we can&#39;t observe anything that is perfectly good, How can we rationally conclude that such a thing is out there? Even if there is a creator God, what basis do we have for saying that he is good?</i><br /><br />There are degrees of every trait in nature. We say that things are &quot;more&quot; or &quot;less&quot; in certain ways. Things can be more good, more beautiful and so forth. However, by doing so we presuppose a maximum, and, as Aquinas argues, all maximums are the cause of lower degrees. It&#39;s a very Neo-Platonistic argument. When we say that a human is &quot;more good&quot;, for instance, we are considering how well he lives out his nature as a &quot;rational animal&quot;. However, even this goodness is based on a higher goodness (which, for Aquinas, is interconvertible with truth, beauty, nobility, etc.) still, which brings us to an infinite, all-encompassing goodness. We refer to this goodness as God.<br /><br />Read this before you throw out a silly objection: http://thomism.wordpress.com/2012/08/08/the-thomism-of-richard-dawkins/<br /><br /><i>God is good (ontologically, if you insist).<br />God is not a moral agent. Why not? Isn&#39;t he responsible for his own creation?</i><br /><br />God does not &quot;make decisions&quot; in the sense that you or I make decisions. Further, the very idea that God could be called &quot;good&quot; or &quot;bad&quot; is ridiculous under Aquinas&#39;s system, because it would put &quot;goodness&quot; on a higher ontological plane than God. rank sophisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01644531454383207175noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-17932593280793320912012-08-18T13:00:24.072-07:002012-08-18T13:00:24.072-07:00@im-skeptical
&gt;You are correct. I am quite ign...@im-skeptical<br /><br />&gt;You are correct. I am quite ignorant of philosophy, including atheist philosophy.<br /><br />Socrates was the wisest man in antiquity because he knew that He did not know. You have the makings of a philosopher and you have the great potential to be a non-Gnu Atheist. A rational Atheist. Simply by admitting you do not know.<br /><br />&quot;I don&#39;t know&quot; is the key to wisdom.<br /><br />The question is are you willing to learn?<br /><br />&gt;God is not a moral agent. Why not? Isn&#39;t he responsible for his own creation?<br /><br />What is a moral agent? What is moral goodness? God is not a being alongside other beings &amp; thus can&#39;t be a moral agent.<br /><br />&gt;I think Aquinas made statements like, &quot;Goodness is being. Being is perfection.&quot; Such statements don&#39;t relate to things that I see or experience. They have no meaning to me.<br /><br />Then you should take the time to learn what they mean if only to know. If not to answer your questions about God &amp; help you believe at least do it so you will have a stronger reason not to believe from a position of knowledge.<br /><br />&gt;But such statements have been used to justify the answers to some fundamental questions, or fine points in theistic philosophy like &quot;How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?&quot;<br /><br />Bullshit! That is a myth on the level of Young Earth Creationists who run around claiming Darwin denounced his theory on his deathbed. Pure bullshit.<br /><br />BTW FYI Angels are Subsistant Forms where as a needle is a composite of form and matter. Thus to speak of Angels &quot;dancing on pins&quot; makes about as much sense as saying &quot;I examined the Andromeda Galaxy under my microscope yesterday&quot;. <br /><br /><br />&gt;The question I have posed is pretty straightforward. The answers never are.<br /><br />Then you must learn Thomistic philosophy otherwise your skepticism is just willful ignorance.BenYachovhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05645132954231868592noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-6824327455805730612012-08-18T12:21:35.139-07:002012-08-18T12:21:35.139-07:00In a paper entitled “Evil and Skeptical Theism” (h...In a paper entitled “Evil and Skeptical Theism” (http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/ryan_stringer/skeptical-theism.html) in the chapter “(2) Other Problematic Consequences of Skeptical Theism” Ryan Stringer gives explains why there may be cases when man is obliged to alleviate suffering, whereas God isn’t. The same conclusion can be drawn from the ideas expressed in points (1) and (2) of the theodicy outlined below called “Theodicy from divine justice”.<br /><br />(1) God’s perfect justice prevents Him from relieving people with unforgiven sins from their sufferings (see Isaiah 59,1-2).<br />(2) Unlike God Christians are not perfectly just. Therefore, unlike God, they are in a position to help people with unforgiven sins. By doing this they may make those among them who haven’t yet accepted God’s salvation receptive of it (Matthew 5,16, 1 Peter 2,11-12, and 3,1-2), which in turn frees these persons from suffering in the afterlife.<br />(3) The greater God’s beneficial power due to His love, the greater God’s destructive power due to His justice (see Matthew 13,27-29). Striving to prevent as much suffering as possible God can only interfere to such a degree that the beneficial effect of the interference is not neutralized by the destructive effect of it.<br />(4) Someone who dies before he or she reaches the age of accountability, i.e. before he or she can distinguish between good and evil (see Genesis 2,16-17, Deuteronomy 1,39, and Isaiah 7,16) faces no punishment in the afterlife, as he or she would not have been able to commit sins. So, God may not be inclined to prevent such a person’s death.<br />(5) A person’s suffering in this life may have a redeeming effect (Luke 16,25) and consequently contribute to a decrease of the respective person’s suffering in the afterlife; the amount of suffering in this life is so to speak subtracted from the amount of suffering in the afterlife. So, God may not be inclined to relieve this person’s suffering.<br />(6) A person’s suffering in this life may make the person receptive of God’s salvation (Luke 15,11-21), which in turn frees this person from suffering in the afterlife.<br />(7) There are degrees of punishment in the afterlife depending on one’s moral behaviour (Matthew 16,27, 2 Corinthians 5,10), one’s knowledge of God’s will (Matthew 11,20-24, Luke 12,47-48, John 15,22-25), and, as mentioned before, one’s amount of suffering in this life (Luke 16,25).<br />(8) Those people who suffer more in this life than they deserve due to their way of life are compensated for it by receiving rewards in Heaven.<br />(9) As for animal suffering, animals will be compensated for it on the “new earth” mentioned in Isaiah 65,17-25, 2 Peter 3,13 and Revelation 21,1.<br /><br />Looking at points (1) and (2) of this theodicy the reason for such an asymmetry between human and divine acts lies in the different consequences of such acts. If a sinner received supernatural help from God, he certainly would interpret such help as an approval of his way of life and thus be encouraged to go on with it, but this certainly wouldn’t be the case if he received help from Christians.Patrickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08733557675273087950noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-15644763717832891082012-08-18T12:03:33.813-07:002012-08-18T12:03:33.813-07:00You are correct. I am quite ignorant of philosoph...You are correct. I am quite ignorant of philosophy, including atheist philosophy. As I said before, I&#39;m no philosopher. So I&#39;m sorry for that. I&#39;m just trying to understand what I perceived you to be saying:<br /><br />God is good (ontologically, if you insist).<br />God is not a moral agent. Why not? Isn&#39;t he responsible for his own creation?<br /><br />This is to be understood in the context of other things I am aware of:<br /><br />God&#39;s creatures derive their goodness from God. (This is a tenet of Christian theology, is it not?)<br />God&#39;s creation is in fact nowhere near perfectly good. This I can see for myself. Why not?<br />God&#39;s creation is everything we humans are able to observe. It&#39;s the invisible part that we debate about.<br />If we can&#39;t observe anything that is perfectly good, How can we rationally conclude that such a thing is out there? Even if there is a creator God, what basis do we have for saying that he is good?<br /><br />I think Aquinas made statements like, &quot;Goodness is being. Being is perfection.&quot; Such statements don&#39;t relate to things that I see or experience. They have no meaning to me. But such statements have been used to justify the answers to some fundamental questions, or fine points in theistic philosophy like &quot;How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?&quot;<br /><br />The question I have posed is pretty straightforward. The answers never are.im-skepticalhttp://im-skeptical.myopenid.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-35040776034432735112012-08-18T10:04:59.212-07:002012-08-18T10:04:59.212-07:00These additional links might help.
Aquinas and t...These additional links might help.<br /><br /><br /><b>Aquinas and the Best of All Possible Worlds</b><br /><br />http://www.aquinasonline.com/Topics/boapw.html<br /><br />THE PROBLEM OF EVIL<br />http://www.aquinasonline.com/Topics/probevil.html<br /><br /><b>What is the distinction between metaphysical goodness and moral goodness in the through of Thomas.</b><br /><br />http://www.aquinasonline.com/Questions/goodevil.html<br /><br />BenYachovhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05645132954231868592noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10584495.post-58898159853189644202012-08-18T09:54:30.539-07:002012-08-18T09:54:30.539-07:00Questions you need to answer for your own understa...Questions you need to answer for your own understanding.<br /><br />&gt;God is perfectly good.<br /><br />What does it mean to be Good? Regardless of religion what is the philosophical &amp; metaphysical meaning of goodness?<br /><br />&gt;All of God&#39;s creatures derive their goodness from God, but those creatures, for some reason, are not perfectly good. <br /><br />What does the adverb &quot;perfect&quot; mean here relative to the adjective &quot;good&quot;?<br /><br />Are we talking about ontological goodness or moral goodness?<br /><br />Example: This rootbeer is good but does it cease to be a good rootbeer because it didn&#39;t stop the holocaust?<br /><br />Are we talking about Absolute Perfection or Relative Perfection?<br /><br />&gt;God himself is not a moral agent, so whenever he intervenes in the affairs of the world, he is free to perpetrate all manner of vile acts.<br /><br />How does that logically follow? If God is not a moral agent it doesn&#39;t make him immoral. He could be in a sense A-moral. Things can be A-moral and good. For example science and evolution are both A-moral and good.<br /><br />Of course are you making unequivocal comparisons of God to creatures or analogous ones? Because my Thomistic Philosophy tells me it is impossible to make an unequivocal comparison between God and creatures.<br /><br />&gt;Still, by some logical contortion, we are to conclude that God is perfectly good. I may be obtuse, but it&#39;s not for lack of trying to understand.<br /><br />Unless you get off your arse &amp; learn some philosophy your prattles will mean as much to me as the prattles of a YEC enthusiast with a 6th grader&#39;s understanding of biology waxing eloquent on evolution to someone who has at least a Junior College level understanding of science and biology.<br /><br />Ya feel me bro?<br /><br />So get to reading. BenYachovhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05645132954231868592noreply@blogger.com